Talat Yaqoob wins ‘Best Blog’

Over the next week we will be publishing information about all of our 2017 Write to End Violence Against Women award winners. You can find the full list here.

You can also listen to interviews with attendees of the Write to End VAW awards, on Engender’s Podcast ‘On The Engender’.

Talat Yaqoob won the Best Blog award for her writing on the subject of online misogyny. Read the blog here: “Just Ignore It”

On the gendered nature of online misogyny, Talat writes, “Why does this matter to the Women 5050 campaign? Because sexist abuse online and the disproportionate abuse of our women leaders prevents other women from aspiring to these roles. Last year, GirlGuiding UK released a report stating that “49% of girls aged 11–21 say fear of abuse online makes them feel less free to share their views”. Earlier this year, Unison Wales told us that online abuse was putting women off politics.”

Judges’ comments: “This blog makes an elegantly constructed argument about the virulence of misogyny experienced online by women, and women politicians in particular. Talat Yaqoob frames the argument around the advice of men to ignore this abuse either because it isn’t worth a response or because we all “have bigger fish to fry” in domestic and sexual violence and FGM, for example. Yaqoob aptly names the silencing inherent in both pieces of advice, and the tweets used to illustrate her argument remind us just how dangerous a place public space is for all women.”

“Brilliant! A tightly written, evidence based challenge to how women experience gender based violence online. The creative use of categories to guide the reader through the piece added to the impact of the blog.”